I have no words for this.

Game Time: 6 PM
TV / Radio: CSN / WGN Radio
Next Relocation Victims: Light The Lamp

Today's lesson: lucky timing.  If ever the Blackhawks needed a slump buster of a game, its now.  After playing two absolutely dreadful games, the Hawks get to play against the worst team in the NHL, the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Seriously?

Seriously?

That’s what you’re going to do?

Steve Montador?

In front of the net?

On the powerplay?

You’re THAT much out of ideas?

Parting away Hawks' shots all night. 

John Scott played 11 minutes and 16 seconds tonight. Do I really need to continue the recap?

The Blackhawks came into St. Louis facing a team with something to prove. The Blues quit on their second coach in a row and now have Ken Hitchcock behind the bench. Maybe that lit a fire under the ass of some of those guys. Rumors have been flying that certain players could be on their way out of the trap. With all that being said, one team came to play and the other seem uninterested.

It took less than 10 minutes for everybody to realize that the train wreck pairing of John Scott and Steve Montador was a bad idea. A failed Scott poke-check led to a nifty pass from Kevin Shattenkirk and a nice finish by Vladimir Sabotka to put the Blues 1 up. While that was how the period ended, the Hawks just looked uninterested the entire time. The Blues were beating the Hawks to pucks, more willing to go after pucks and sticking to their system. Also, Carcillo got owned again. Not a good first couple fights for him.

Ewww.

The Blackhawks take the idiotic circus that is their special teams units off to St. Louis where newly minted head coach Ken Hitchcock claims to have fixed the powerplay in one practice.

The Blues are coming off a narrow 1-2 loss to the surprisingly successful (at least thus far) Minnesota Wild on Saturday. The Blues are hanging with a 6-7 record, good for second to last in the Western Conference, ahead of only the laughable Columbus Blue Jackets. *insert complaining about bonus point and “.500” records here*

To give you an idea of where the Blues are at, their top three scorers are Alex Steen, Jason Arnott (LOL) and T.J. Oshie with 9, 8, and 8 points respectively. However, the saving grace for the Blues is their defense, with all players with a few exceptions (Chris Stewart among them) having plus ratings despite Jaroslav Halak’s tepid start. Thankfully for the Blues, Brian Elliott of “Escaping Ottawa” fame has been a minor diety in net while Halak gets his shit together. Halak is reported to get the start tonight against the Hawks, but don’t get excited yet, as Halak is still a premier talent and can steal a game at a moment’s notice.

"I've had hangovers pan out better than this shit..."

I had a bad feeling about this one. Hearing Duncs was still out, had read a lot of the trash talk in the Tribune earlier in the day and it felt like the Blackhawks were underestimating. I left my parents house this afternoon telling my mom that it was probably going to be bad and she should be glad they wouldn't be able to watch it. Sorry for the jinx y'all. As much as the dad's trip was a "fun time" and a "different experience", that longer than necessary road trip down to Florida came back to bite 'em. Also, talking trash is great, always fun to read and get a little fired up over... but come out and show something if you're going to do it.

Oh, the Canucks. Hey, losers. What's new?

Oh, wait, I can think of something new: You’re looking at our sexy asses sitting pretty in first place in the conference while you’re hanging out in 11th. But that’s not really a big deal. I mean, we’re only a dozen or so games in.

That two game losing streak you guys are on is pretty awesome. Who’d you lose to again? The Wild & Blues? LOL. Yeah, sure, the Wild have gotten off to a pretty damn good start, but, really? The Wild? Okay then.

What else is new, guys? Luongo’s stats? A 3.19 GAA and a .884 SV%? That’s not really new, at least not to us. We’re pretty used to seeing that honestly. And in actuality, a 3.19 GAA would be welcome for the Canucks against the Hawks.

You might want to give Alex “Hungry Hungry Hippo” Burrows a heads up that he’ll have to figure out who’s hair he’d like to pull on since Duncan Keith is taking another night off tonight.

So I'm not entirely sure what happened last night. The Hawks and the Lightning did not do much by way of denting twine in the first period, the second period saw an explosion of goals the likes of which was last seen in a game between Winnipeg and Philadelphia, and then the third period saw both teams laying low content to play for a point. Well, that may be pushing it a bit much, but there were a total of eight goals scored in that frame alone, half per team.

Stamkos opened the scoring fifteen seconds into the second period, but Patrick Sharp was quick to get it back less than a minute later. When Connolly tied it up the Hawks again had an answer in Hossa. It seemed as though the Hawks had everything under control, however, because in a span of 1:05 minutes after Hossa scored the goal Carcillo and Sharp followed with two successive ones themselves.

Then Stamkos happened.

(Hit the jump to read more.)

Hello all, unless you’ve been completely out of the loop and hiding under a rock with Roberto Luongo you know that the Blackhawks are currently in tote with their dads for the bi-annual Chicago Blackhawks Dad’s Trip. While the nice pleasantries of golf and dinners are highlighted on Blackhawks TV, BHDL has been able to take a glimpse into all the activities they aren’t talking about:


The Dad’s Trip Fight Club.

First we talk to Mr. Hjalmarsson. Thinking with a familly nickname like “Hammer” and a son that blocks shots on the regular he’d have a pretty good tolerance to be the first one in the rink. Here’s what he had to say.

"I'll just take this... yep... I thank you sir."

Game Time: 6:30pm CST
TV/Radio: CSN (and NHL Network)/WGN 720
Know Your Foe: Lightning Hockey Blog

Hey, how about that skills competition last night, huh? Even with the longer game I’m sure the Blackhawks will be rested considering they took the third period off, making them ready for tonight’s tilt against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Seabrook/Hjalmarsson paring played monster minutes last night, along with a big night from O’Donnell and Leddy. I don’t know if it was just the look of Leddy without the horse Keith out there with him, but he looked poised and natural with the puck. I’ve really enjoyed watching Leddy continue to up his game. With Keith out again, the defense will have to continue step it up. Emery is good, but no one should be seeing 40+ shots. As luck would have it for Emery and the Blackhawks, the TBL have scored three goals while taking 58 shots total in their previous two games.

For the love of God, get a haircut.

The Blackhawks took their talents fathers to South Beach last night, which was enough to warrant wariness among Hawks faithful if we were to judge from the team's one-year track record at Dad Trips so far. And if we were playing a team other than Florida, it might have been the case as well.

It started well enough, at least on the stat that matters. Brunette had a hard-working, grinding pass to Toews early in the first  that the captain was pretty much drove the captain into the net with the goal in tow, and though the Panthers outshot the Hawks 15-7 in the first (then again, we were playing in Florida, notorious for padding their own shots and thus, also Vokoun's statistics) it was the Hawks who came out of it with the lead.

The second period saw more effort from the Hawks, with Marian Hossa showing off what he can do with a play-making center (LOL Kaner) when he finished a crisp cross-ice pass from Lil Peek-a-Boo. HOWEVER, the Panthers seemingly were not out of it just yet, cutting the Hawks' lead to a slim half when Versteeg set Weiss up for a goal of their own.

And then the Panthers came on fast and furious in the final frame, outshooting the Hawks 14-5 and eventually having one tip past Crawford. The Hawks couldn't mount much of a counterattack then, so to overtime the game went. Neither team made much of anything, and in the shootout only Patrick Kane found the back of the net. Game over, half of the trip done. Tonight the Hawks face Tampa Bay and on Sunday the Canucks come to the Madhouse.

Hit the jump for more game notes.